Everything from the surreal jangle of an 18-string guitar, to rich, thick walls of symphonic sound.

The Electro-Harmonix POG2 effect pedal is a polyphonic octave generator that lets you conjure up everything from the surreal jangle of an 18-string guitar to rich, thick walls of symphonic sound. It features an Attack control that enables you to fade in lush, smooth swells. It also features a second sub-octave to reach deeper than ever before, a 2-pole resonant low-pass filter that includes two additional Q modes, and an enhanced detune to refine your sound even further. The POG 2lets you save your favorite settings and recall them with a single click. Its enhanced algorithm delivers a focused and in-the-pocket harmonic performance. All this is packed into the Electro-Harmonix POG2's rugged and pedalboard-friendly die-cast chassis.

I have never been a fan of pedals, but i was curious about the POG2, so I ordered one to see what the hype was all about...I must say this is one amazing POG. I have owned it for over a month now and still havent unlocked all of its potential. The tracking is dead on and the octave combinations are incredible. My fav feature is the swell, which controls the attack..you can get some great stuff. As far as octave generation, the 12 string effect is crystal clean or you can get dirty with the B3 sounds. All in all, this pedal will have you experimenting for hours and days, and will bring new life and creativity to your sound....highly recommended.

One of the first effect pedals I bought. There is no delay or glitching with chords. The extra octave up and down are nice, but the detune is what makes this better than the micro pog. The detune makes it more filled out and not straight digital sounding. By itself some settings will sound thin/fake until you run it into some anolog effects like a good compressor and chorus/delay etc. It doesn't make your guitar sound like a 12 or 18 string any more than claiming a chorus sounds like two guitars. It is not very dynamic. But it is still a cool effect. It's expensive, but it has no real competition that comes close. Other effects are single note at a time, while this can handle chords. People will think you are playing a keyboard/organ in your recordings, so you if you play keys, you might consider another cool EHX effect. But there are definately things that you can do on guitar that make this worth while. It is in my mind palette for song writing, but if someone stole all my pedals, I would get by with a keyboard for a while while I replaced other essentials first. I give it an "8" because it is good. It would be a 10 if it was $100 less or had a expression pedal input that controlled all the parameters or had midi to switch patches faster on the fly.

The POG2 is a gem of a little pedal, with many capabilities overlooked both in other reviews Ive read and on Youtube demo videos. Almost all of its parameters are controllable by individual, single function sliders, so its very intuitive to use, you can graphically see almost every change you make by the position of a slider. Its conveniently divided into the Voice Mix section and the Effects section. Im a bass player, so if the pedal has any problems, theyll show up on a bass before they would on a guitar, and I can tell you its tracking is instantaneous and flawless. Heres its basic functions.

First, you have the ability to play up to 5 separate octaves simultaneously from the Voice Mix, blended in any amount you want. They include your dry signal, one and two octaves below your dry signal, and one and two octaves above your dry signal. The amazing thing is this will track the suboctaves all the way down to the open B on five or six string basses with no glitches, no jumping octaves, like youll find on just about every other octave pedal. Admittedly, the tone gets kind of gnarly down that low, but if you keep your dry signal higher in the mix, and your speakers can handle those low frequencies, you can get some musically useful tones. Using just one octave down, it stays pretty distinct down to the open E before getting gnarly. Part of the trick to getting usable tones that low has to do with how you have the filters set in the Effects section. The upper octave Voices speak fine down to the open B, with just some of the warbling youd expect from pitch shifting.

Next, in the Effects section you have just three sliders, for Attack, Low Pass Filter, and Detune. Raising the sliders will slow the Attack to the point of a very nice long swell; open the Filter cutoff filter so your tone becomes brighter and less effected, that is, less filtered; and increase the amount of Detune.

Between the Voice Mix and Effects sections are two buttons. The top button influences how much your dry signal goes through the Effects section. It can bypass it completely. One push of the button turn its associated LED red, and sends your dry signal through the Attack effect only. Two button pushes turns the LED green and sends your dry signal through the Attack and LP Filter. Three pushes, the LED turns yellow, and your dry signal goes through Attack, Filter, and Detune. The synthesized octaves will always go through all the Effects as theyre set, regardless of how your dry signal is routed. The bottom button adjusts the Resonance of the Low Pass Filter. Each push of its button increases the Resonance though 4 stages, and its associated LED gets brighter with each push.

You can store 8 Presets, just by setting up the preset as you want it and then press the Preset knob, holding it down for three seconds in one of the 8 locations. There are two footswitches, one to bypass the pedal with true bypass, and one to cycle through your presets.

Almost everyone familiar with this pedal knows its famous for its organ-like emulations. Multiple synthesized octaves will do that, but this is made more realistic on the POG2 by its Filter function, which softens the guitar sound into something a little more reedy, and the Detune function, which lends a subtle Leslie vibe. Its also known for its 12 and 18 string guitar emulations, also made more realistic using a little Detune. In these two cases, this one pedal provides the functionality of two or three pedals.

Its known as an octave divider too. The POG is cleaner than most other octave dividers. It doesnt have the fat, synthy grit of either an EBS or Markbass, for example. But it tracks immediately with no glitches over the entire range of the bass, and using Detune or Attack adjustments, can be set to sound like the bass strings of a clavinet or harpsichord, something the others cant. So, its a different beast.

The P in POG stands for Polyphonic, and even on a bass, it will recognize two or three note chords all the way down the neck. Typical power chords sound great. If you play thirds down low, it will track perfectly, but you get more warbling. It will recognize triads down low too, and will sound pretty good if you use an open voicing, like root, 5th, and 10th. The warbling can be reduced by your Filter settings, but not completely eliminated down that low.

Heres a couple of other cool possibilities. It does great violin or cello emulations, with a slower Attack setting and some filtering. You might want to try eliminating your Dry Signal altogether and just use either one or two octaves up. Another cool sound, using one or two octaves up with Filtering--fiddle with that until you get what you like--and no Attack or Detune, you can get something really close to Miles Davis distorted wah wah trumpet from the Bitches Brew era recordings. Before the POG2, I had to use three separate pedals to get close to that! Theres a LOT more this can do if you really dig into it.

My wish list for this pedal includes:1. A way to step back up through the presets so I could toggle between two or three. As it is, if youre on preset two, you have to step through all seven other presets to get back to preset one. 2. A dry output, so I could run the dry signal simultaneously through a parallel effects chain.3. An expression pedal input to control the Attack, Filtering, or Detune on the fly.These are minor issues, though. Im very happy with the POG2, and I think you will be too!

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